Share the Stage to Make Fast Fans

By Alyson Stanfield on October 24, 2012

Doesn’t it feel good when other people say nice things about you and your art?

It’s easy to pass along this sensation to those you care about. Sharing the stage and shining the spotlight on other people will turn them into fast fans while taking some of the weight off of you to promote your work all of the time.

It will also make you feel good!

Here are some ways to share the stage.

Other Artists

Give other artists a small feature near the end of your newsletter. Tell your readers why you selected the artists.

Share artists’ Facebook pages on your Facebook profile or business page. You can also promote their blog or website if they don’t have a Facebook page.

Tweet a link to a work or blog post by an artist you particularly admire. Say more than “Nice work” or “Great post!” Tell your followers why you think they should take time to click.

Create a Pinterest board of your favorite artists’ work – always pinning from the artists’ original images rather than Google Images or other sources. I like to get permission before I pin artist images, so perhaps you should take this extra step in case there is any question.

Your Collectors & Friends

Feature a picture of your collector with your art in your newsletter, on Facebook, or on your blog or website.

Consider making a short video of your art installed in a collector’s home or office. This works even better if the collector wants to gush about your art on the recording.

Your collectors and friends have businesses too! Promote their businesses whenever you can.

If the friend’s business is art-related, share the resource in your newsletter or with your Facebook followers. You might even ask if he or she wants to write a guest post for your blog.

If you’ve done business with your friend or collector and can vouch for his service or product, send him an unrequested testimonial with permission to add it to his promotions. In addition, write something complimentary on his Facebook page.

Don’t forget about Yelp! I get great joy out of writing positive reviews on this site for businesses and restaurants that I love.

Create a Pinterest board of your collectors with your art (with their permission) or their businesses (permission usually not needed unless copyrighted images are an issue).

Doesn’t it feel good to share the stage? Tell us how you are doing this in your art business by leaving a comment below.

27 comments to Share the Stage to Make Fast Fans

This is a great article. I love sharing the stage. I love showing off my inspiration and helping others as much as I can. Other things you can do is blog about other artists, works of art and inspiration. Social Bookmark, tweet, like and share others’ work. It’s a great way to add content to your blog and social media platforms and make yourself more of a go-to person.

Additionally, and this is more about personal objectives, increases SEO and general visibility if there is more content about artists on your own platforms.

We walked the whole Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition…Out of the heap, there was one lonely girl in a lonely booth, with hundreds of sewn flowers hanging each individually on string…It was completely uncommercial…Totally impractical…It was art…I wrote about it…I told people about it…I wrote to the artist after the show…Then I realized…I was stuck in traditional…I was stuck in commercial…What I admired in this artist was her boldness to do something without worrying about whether it was a medium that was already accepted…So I dropped my marble & cement obsession, & instead wove around my steel Dragonfly armature with Nylon Mason’s line…Now I am getting the compliments…”What goes around, comes around…”(our high school’s saying)…

I have long believed in the reciprocity of social networking. You can’t expect anybody to share you work if you don’t do it too! I’ve been thinking about how to share other people’s work on my facebook page and my blog. RIght now I’m committed to blogging every day in October and I’m doing a series. When that is over – I’m going to start featuring other artists on both my page and my blog!

Alyson,
Thank you for this article. I have been thinking about starting a monthly (bi-monthly?) email newsletter, but I’m nervous about content and always being about me me me. However, I’m finding that I’m missing the boat on this aspect and loosing some students for workshops etc.
I think that “Sharing the Stage” for and helping promote some of my artist-friends at times that I have less going on might make me feel better about my content.
-Jenny

Such a great point!! I love that you said this. I think “what comes around goes around” and don’t you want great things to come right back at you!! I love it and I am going to start promoting others more, too!

I’ve been sharing your blog in a community of Houston Artists, Alyson. I think what you have here is treasure of insight for many long-time artists and those just stepping into the world. While, I’m not a practicing painter and probably won’t be I enjoy promoting art and am taken aback by the goldmine of perspective I get from your posts. My dream is to build a large online network with mentors just like you guiding artists worldwide!

You bring up a powerful message (as always Alyson) I have a series on my blog called Artist as Collector. Each week I have a different artist as a guest blogger to share and write about a piece of art that they have in their collection by another artist- introducing my readers to two new artists. The guest artist writes about the piece- how they got it, why they love it, or why it inspires them. I link to both the guest artist and their selected artist, as well as have a couple of lines about the guest blogger. Here is the most recent http://nancihersh.blogspot.com/2012/10/drawn-to-fragile-fragments-artist-as.html.
Some of my guest bloggers I have found through ArtBiz, Alyson, and I invite more of you to contact me. Would love to see who is in your collection

Thank you, Alyson! This is great advice and very timely for me. Always wanted to feature others on my page and newsletter, but was not sure if my audience would be interested in that. I will certainly give it a try! It will be fun to do, regardless. It has also been a great pleasure to share your book with many of the young artists in my community and every one of them have said how helpful and encourageing your book has been for them. I also enjoyed the other commenter’s ideas as well.

I think you’ve made a wonderful point. You should be able to create a conversation about art and artists not just your own work. Just last night I posted on FB a link to my “art wishlist” board on Pinterest. It has some of my work but it is 95% other work. I got two new followers, not much, but a gain nevertheless.

Love this article, thank you for sharing your thoughts! I always wanted to do something like that on my FB page but felt insecure about how the other artist will take it, now I got motivated to just ask them if it will be OK to share their work that I admire on my page.
And share a lot of great artist that are out there!
Gracias!

A follow up to all of Alyson’s followers that I have a series on my blog that runs on Sundays called Artist as Collector. Each week I have a different artist guest artist blogs about a piece of art that they have in their home/ collection, how they got it, and why they love it or why it inspires them. I link to your website and theirs, and post a photo of your artwork as a “teaser” or intro on my FB Page a day or so before. It’s a great way to introduce everyone to new artists and art (yours and theirs)http://nancihersh.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-year-of-art-in-our-collections.htmlhttp://www.facebook.com/NanciHersh.Artist

This is what I love about art, the sharing. I created an album on my fb page called “my art in your space” and I ask people to send me pics of how and where they display their art. I also post pics of my art at friends.